Google Ads campaign: choose and create

What is a Google Ads campaign?

A Google Ads campaign groups ad groups that share the same settings. These are the budget, type, networks, locations, languages, schedule and bid strategy. Google sees it as the way to promote your products or services across its network: search, websites, videos, apps, maps or product listings (Google Ads Help on creating a campaign).

Everything starts from a goal: sales, leads, traffic, awareness, app promotion or store visits. The chosen goal filters the campaign types offered in the interface. The basics of the account and the auction are laid out in how Google Ads works.

What are the Google Ads campaign types?

Google Ads offers several campaign types. Each one matches an inventory and a level of automation (Google Ads Help on campaign types). The table below adds the concrete prerequisite of each type, often forgotten at launch.

Campaign type	Where the ads show	Typical goal	Concrete prerequisite
Search	Google search results	Sales, leads on expressed demand	Keywords, text ads, landing pages
Performance Max	All Google Ads inventory from one campaign	Sales, leads, store visits	Reliable conversion goals, text, image and video assets
Shopping	Search results and the Shopping tab	E-commerce sales	Merchant Center account and product feed
Demand Gen	YouTube (including Shorts), Discover, Gmail, Display Network	Create demand, drive action	Visuals and videos, audiences
Video	YouTube and partner sites	Awareness, consideration, conversions	Videos published on YouTube
Display	Partner websites and apps	Reach, remarketing	Images in the required formats
App	Search, Play, YouTube, Discover, partner network	Installs and in-app actions	An app published on a store

Demand Gen serves ads on YouTube, Discover, Gmail and the Google Display Network. Google Display campaigns are being moved to Demand Gen, according to Google Ads Help on Demand Gen. For advertising on third-party sites beyond Google, see our programmatic advertising pillar.

Which Google Ads campaign should you choose for your goal?

The right campaign type depends first on your audience’s intent at the moment they see the ad.

• Your customer is already searching for your product: start with Search. You see which queries trigger your ads and what they bring in.
• You sell a catalog online: Shopping or Performance Max with a Merchant Center feed.
• Nobody is searching for your offer yet: Demand Gen or video to create demand. Measure them other than by last click.
• Reliable conversion tracking and history available: Performance Max can extend reach to all channels.

Performance Max deserves a separate read. Its controls, its reports and the risk of brand cannibalization are analyzed in our Performance Max guide.

On Search, Google also offers AI Max. This set of options broadens search term matching. It also adapts ad text and can change the final URL. It is a campaign setting: turn it on knowingly. Then monitor the search terms it adds.

How many campaigns should you create and how should you structure them?

Google’s rule is simple. A separate campaign as soon as the budget or geographic targeting changes. Ad groups built around a precise theme (Google Ads Help on account organization).

Three splits come up in most accounts. These are management practices, not Google rules:

Split	Why	Example
Brand and non-brand	Costs and conversion rates that bear no comparison; protected budget	“brand name” in one campaign, generic queries in another
Locations with different margins	One budget and one bid per profitable location	Mainland France and the French overseas departments, or two regions
Offers with different goals	One bid strategy per goal	Online sales on one side, appointment booking on the other

How do you create a Google Ads Search campaign?

Creation follows the path of the interface. Here are the steps and the decision to make at each one.

1. Goal and conversions: choose the goal, then the conversion actions that will be used for optimization. Check that they are already being recorded.
2. Campaign type: Search to capture expressed demand.
3. Networks: decide whether to include Google Search Partners and the Display Network. For a first test, stay on Google.
4. Locations and languages: target the areas where you deliver or operate, and choose the location targeting option (see below).
5. Budget and bidding: set an average daily budget and a bid strategy that fits your conversion volume.
6. Ad groups: one theme per group, closely related keywords, at least one responsive ad.
7. Assets: sitelinks, callouts, call, location, depending on your business.
8. Review: read the warnings shown by the interface before publishing.

Choosing keywords and writing ads are detailed in keywords and ads. Choosing the bid strategy is covered in Smart Bidding.

Which Google Ads campaign settings should you check before publishing?

Three campaign settings often make the budget get spent somewhere other than planned.

Location targeting: presence or interest

The broader option, “Presence or interest”, reaches people located in your areas. It also reaches people who show interest in them. Google recommends this broader targeting on Search. The “Presence” option is for when you only want to reach people located in the area (Google Ads Help on location targeting). For a tradesperson who works within a limited radius, “Presence” avoids paying for clicks from far away.

The average daily budget

On a given day, the campaign can spend up to twice its average daily budget. Over the month, never more than 30.4 times that budget (Google Ads Help on the daily budget). So manage it as a monthly envelope.

The conversions used by the campaign

A campaign optimizes for the conversions set as primary. If the account goal includes micro-actions (a click on a phone number, a page visit), the campaign will go after them. Checking tracking is part of any Google Ads audit.